Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

First Edition: May 4, 2015

Today's early morning highlights from the major news organizations.

Kaiser Health News:
Rural Indiana Struggles With Drug-Fueled HIV Epidemic
In a first for Indiana, the state’s legislature last week passed a bill permitting drug users in areas with disease outbreaks to trade used needles for clean ones. It’s in response to an HIV outbreak of historic proportions. Kaiser Health News correspondent Sarah Varney and PBS NewsHour producer Jason Kane travelled to Austin, Indiana, near the Kentucky border, to file this story that aired on the NewsHour on May 1, 2015. Here's the transcript. (5/4)

The Washington Post:
Almost Half Of Obamacare Exchanges Face Financial Struggles In The Future
Nearly half of the 17 insurance marketplaces set up by the states and the District under President Obama’s health law are struggling financially, presenting state officials with an unexpected and serious challenge five years after the passage of the landmark Affordable Care Act. Many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surging costs, especially for balky technology and expensive customer call centers — and tepid enrollment numbers. To ease the fiscal distress, officials are considering raising fees on insurers, sharing costs with other states and pressing state lawmakers for cash infusions. Some are weighing turning over part or all of their troubled marketplaces to the federal exchange. (Sun and Chokshi, 5/1)

The New York Times:
Health Insurance Deadline Passes For Most, But There Are Exceptions
The last chance to sign up for health insurance this year under the Affordable Care Act passed on Thursday, when an extended deadline for enrollment expired. While most people will have to wait until the next open enrollment period in the fall, there is an exception for those who have a change in circumstances — like losing your health coverage because of the loss of a job, or getting married or having a baby. (Carrns, 5/1)

The Washington Post:
Roberts At Center Stage As Supreme Court Approaches Historic Decisions
In one of the court’s two blockbuster cases, about the implementation and continued viability of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Roberts is likely to play the pivotal role. ... Smith said that the test for Roberts will be the fight over the Affordable Care Act, where challengers say the words of the statute do not allow subsidies for those who buy health insurance on a federal exchange, only those set up by states. If Roberts votes for a technical reading of the law instead of agreeing with the administration about the intent of Congress in passing the legislation, Smith said, “that will change how he is perceived for quite a while.” (Barnes, 5/3)

The Associated Press:
Obama Presidential Legacy Begins To Take Shape
Obama would also count the 2010 health care law as a legacy item, provided that it is upheld when the Supreme Court rules by the end of June on another challenge to one of its key components. The law has survived multiple attempts by congressional Republicans to overturn all or just parts of it. Obama's legacy also will be shaped by failures and setbacks in domestic and foreign policy and the rancorous political partisanship he promised to heal but did not. (5/4)

The Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Emergency-Room Visits Keep Climbing
Emergency-room visits continued to climb in the second year of the Affordable Care Act, contradicting the law’s supporters who had predicted a decline in traffic as more people gained access to doctors and other health-care providers. A survey of 2,098 emergency-room doctors conducted in March showed about three-quarters said visits had risen since January 2014. That was a significant uptick from a year earlier, when less than half of doctors surveyed reported an increase. The survey by the American College of Emergency Physicians is scheduled to be published Monday. (Armour, 5/4)

USA Today:
Contrary To Goals, ER Visits Rise Under Obamacare
Three-quarters of emergency physicians say they've seen ER patient visits surge since Obamacare took effect — just the opposite of what many Americans expected would happen. A poll released today by the American College of Emergency Physicians shows that 28% of 2,099 doctors surveyed nationally saw large increases in volume, while 47% saw slight increases. By contrast, fewer than half of doctors reported any increases last year in the early days of the Affordable Care Act. (Ungar and O'Donnell, 5/4)

The Associated Press:
Medicare Data Show Contrast In Generic, Brand Prescribing
The most-used medicines in Medicare’s prescription drug program are generics, but the program spends the most on brand-name drugs, led by the heartburn treatment Nexium, according to an unprecedented release of government data on Thursday. That contrast sheds light on prescribing practices and how they might be used to save money, specialists say. (Neergaard, 5/1)

USA Today:
Government Releases Huge Data Set On Drugs Prescribed To Seniors
An unprecedented public release of federal Medicare drug data this week allows Americans to learn more about which drugs are being prescribed most to senior citizens and how much they cost the health care system. The data, released by the U.S.Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, shows which drugs were prescribed, by whom, to Medicare Part D beneficiaries, allowing researchers to look at issues such as generics versus brand names and the volume of narcotic painkillers being prescribed. (Ungar, 5/1)

The Wall Street Journal:
Generic Vicodin Was A Top Medicare Drug In 2013, Data Shows
Generic Vicodin’s ranking as the drug most widely prescribed to Medicare beneficiaries in 2013 illustrates how comfortable doctors have become reaching for this powerful painkiller for primary care, despite its potential for abuse. An analysis of data released last week on Medicare’s prescription-drug program found that more than half of the prescriptions for the drug, known generically as hydrocodone acetaminophen, came from family-practice or internal-medicine physicians. Those two specialties represented just under a quarter of the more than one million providers in the data. (Wilde Mathews and Beck, 5/3)

USA Today:
Report: Ben Carson To Run For President
At the 2013 Values Voter Summit, he said Obamacare was "the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery." His fiery rhetoric could appeal to the most conservative primary voters, some of whom may be wary of more establishment-aligned potential candidates, such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. But garnering support from a wider swath of GOP voters as a novice to electoral politics could prove challenging. (Allen, 5/4)

The New York Times:
Ben Carson On The Issues
Ben Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, announced Sunday that he is running for the Republican presidential nomination. A Fox News commentator, he is a fierce critic of President Obama’s health care law, calling it “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.” Here is where he stands on some of the biggest issues of the 2016 campaign. (Mullany, 5/3)

The New York Times:
Christie’s Camp Mobilizes To Salvage White House Hopes
Mr. Christie, the governor of New Jersey, consulted with advisers, adjusted his jet-black suit and gamely walked onto a stage before 300 guests eating yogurt parfait and almond croissants. He recited statistics about Social Security and Medicare costs and projected the air of a man thoroughly unbothered by the swirling legal drama back in New Jersey, which he left unmentioned. But behind the scenes, his aides, his allies and even his wife were mobilizing, working the phones and blasting out memos to supporters, trying to hold on to whatever chance Mr. Christie had to make a run at the presidency, according to interviews. (Barbaro and Haberman, 5/2)

USA Today:
Jindal Finds Friendship On Road, Hostility At Home
Friday's speech was one of two appearances Jindal, a Republican mulling a presidential bid, made in Washington this week before supportive audiences that shared his views on school choice, repealing the Affordable Care Act, immigration reform and other issues. Back home, though, the crowds are a lot less friendly. In Louisiana, Jindal is widely disliked for refusing to expand Medicaid, proposing drastic cuts to higher education and other programs, and switching his stance on Common Core education standards. (Barfield Barry, 5/2)

The Wall Street Journal:
Myriad Genetics Fights Off Threats From Rivals
Myriad Genetics Inc. used a patent-protected monopoly to become one of the most successful and controversial DNA testing companies in the world. Now, nearly two years after the Supreme Court struck down its gene patents, Myriad is fighting to sustain its business model amid growing threats from rivals. (Walker, 5/3)

The Wall Street Journal:
LifePoint Hospitals Profit Rises On Higher Admissions
LifePoint Hospitals Inc. said on Friday that its profit rose 5% in the first quarter, as health-care reform continued to help drive higher admissions volumes. The rural hospital operator’s top and bottom lines surpassed analysts’ expectations, but the company’s shares fell about 6% in midday trading as investors focused on a deceleration in same-hospital admissions and took profits after shares rose more than 30% over the past 12 months. (Beilfuss, 5/1)

The Associated Press:
N.Y. Medicaid Overhaul Envisions Combined Outpatient Care
Using an estimated $8 billion as incentives, New York is overhauling Medicaid, pushing providers to establish more outpatient clinics, reduce hospital beds, use electronic records and enable low-income patients to see doctors and psychologists in the same visit. Medicaid now covers almost one-third of all 19 million New Yorkers. Half this year's $62 billion budget is paid by the federal government. (5/3)

The New York Times:
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Struggles With Suicides Among Its Young
Since December, the Pine Ridge reservation, a vast, windswept land of stunning grasslands and dusty plateaus, has been the scene of an unfolding crisis: nine people between the ages of 12 and 24 have committed suicide here. ... Many more youths on the reservation have tried, but failed, to kill themselves in the past several months: at least 103 attempts by people ages 12 to 24 occurred from December to March, according to the federal Indian Health Service. ... Tribe officials, clergy members and social workers say they cannot remember such a high rate of suicides and attempts in such a short period of time on the reservation, which is already overwhelmed with high rates of unemployment, poverty, domestic abuse and alcohol addiction. (Bosman, 5/1)

The Associated Press:
Ohio Clinics Close, Abortions Decline Amid Restrictions
The number of abortion providers in Ohio has shrunk by half amid a flurry of restrictive new laws over the past four years, and the number of the procedures also is declining, according to a review of records by The Associated Press. Both sides agree the added limits and hurdles placed on Ohio abortions have played a role in facility closures reaching to every corner of the nation’s 7th most populous state. What is less clear is whether the downward trajectory in procedures is a cause or an effect of some of the most significantly reduced abortion access in the nation. (Carr Smyth, 5/3)

The Associated Press:
Texas The Front Line On High School ECG Debate
Spurred by the deaths of teenagers ... who are struck down each year by sudden cardiac arrest, Texas lawmakers are pushing to make their state the first to require public high school athletes to undergo electrocardiogram testing. Those pushing for the change ... say testing is relatively cheap and simple, and that it could save lives. ... But opponents of mandatory screening, including the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association, question its effectiveness, saying it would lead to thousands of false-positives each year, which would lead to further, more expensive testing that isn't necessary. (Vertuno, 5/3)

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